Management reshuffle at Viacom18

Management reshuffle at Viacom18
Rebecca Hawkes
| 11 September 2018

Indian media organisation Viacom18 has restructured its management in a move that the TV18 and Viacom joint venture hopes will help consolidate its portfolio and enhance collaboration across its brands.

Viacom18 logo 11 Sept 2018Manisha Sharma, who has heading Viacom18’s flagship Hindi channel Colors, has been promoted to the role of chief content officer, Hindi mass entertainment. As well as holding responsibility for the content on Colors, Rishtey will also fall under her remit.

Revenue across the network will now be unified for the first time, under the leadership of chief operating officer Raj Nayak.

Nina Elavia Jaipuria will become head of Hindi and Kids TV Network, in an expanded mandate that now includes channels across Viacom’s kids and Hindi mass entertainment clusters.

The network’s continued focus into regional broadcast entertainment, in multiple genres and languages, will be overseen by Ravish Kumar as head, regional TV network.

The role of strengthening Viacom18’s youth, music and English entertainment offer remains in the hands of Ferzad Palia, who will also create content and experience for what the network calls ‘universe of the young’.

Ajit Andhare will fill the expanded role of chief operating officer, Viacom18 Studios, leading Viacom18 Motion Pictures’ national and regional cinema output and building the company’s nascent digital content production brand Tipping Point.

Viacom18 Integrated Network Solutions will remain under the control of Saugato Bhowmik who will oversee the building of homegrown IPs in experiential entertainment and drive the licensing business under Viacom18 Consumer Products.

“The first decade of Viacom18 marked the hyper-growth phase for us with more than 50 times growth in topline. In order to make Viacom18 future-ready and dial up growth across different lines of business, it is imperative to drive synergies, leverage scale and build content capabilities across screens,” said Sudhanshu Vats, group CEO and MD designate, Viacom18.

“As we step into our next phase, it is important that we shape an organizational structure that allows us to retain the garage-nimbleness that got us here while enabling Viacom18’s independent business lines to leverage the synergies that consolidation brings. Integrating our revenues and building content engines to cater to multiple screens across India, under the above leaders, is an important step towards a forward-looking organisation.”

These operational changes will become effective immediately, with all the above executives reporting directly to Sudhanshu Vats.